Looking for Alaska:
47. Forty-Five Days After
Summary & Analysis

LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Looking for Alaska, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.

How to Live and Die

Mystery and the Unknown

Loyalty and Forgiveness

Memory and Memorial

Identity

Mischief

Summary

Analysis

People have stopped giving Miles and the Colonelcigarettes out of sympathy, so Takumi drives them to Coosa Liquors to buy some more. Miles goes in to buy the cigarettes and the clerk says that she’s heard about the death at Culver Creek, and she’s sorry about it. Miles thinks that it’s when life starts to feel normal that Alaska’s death hits everyone the hardest, because that’s when they miss her the most.

Just as Alaska was able to associate the date with her anniversary with Jake rather than the anniversary of her mother’s death, so Alaska’s friends slowly start to return to their normal lives. But their normal lives involved Alaska, and each time things seem better, they are reminded of her death.